13 June 2024
The 6th interim General Assembly of DiSSCo RI, hosted at the National History Museum of London last May 31st, showcased important developments for the future Research Infrastructure: new associate members, technical developments, the announcement of the German node of DiSSCo, and a new governance body for the DiSSCo community: the Interim Council. This post briefly overviews the last of these developments.
By DiSSCo’s CSO
General assemblies of projects like DiSSCo usually provide an opportunity to review the work done, vote on decisions that keep the project moving, and generally connect with other colleagues from the community. DiSSCo’s 6th iGA was something more. Along with the announcement of the new DiSSCo German node and the latest technical developments, the DiSSCo’s sixth iGA brought new associate members from Belgium and a new development unknown to most in our community at large, one that has to do with how DiSSCo expects to successfully complete its ERIC roadmap and continue on to its construction phase: the Interim Council.
Wouter Addink presents DiSSCo’s latest technical developments
The path towards DiSSCo ERIC
Following the advice of its Funders Forum (FF), the DiSSCo community recently chose the European Research Infrastructure Consortium (ERIC) as the most suitable legal form for the future DiSSCo RI.
The Funders Forum was the advisory body that brought together ministerial representatives from the future member state funders of DiSSCoRI to provide high-level recommendations on legal, financial, and organisational matters during the preparatory phase of DiSSCo RI.
Becoming an ERIC is far from easy. In addition to a minimum number of countries committed to funding the future infrastructure, a so-called application package, including detailed legal, financial, technical, and scientific documentation, is needed for the process. After three years of work with the Funders Forum, much of that work has been accomplished. Now, it is time to move ahead, finalise the process to make DiSSCo an ERIC, and develop policies and strategies to be implemented during the construction phase of DiSSCo.
Representatives of DiSSCo’s National Nodes during the iGA6, hosted by NHM London.
The Netherlands at the steering wheel
As the hosting country of the future RI, the Netherlands will lead the process on behalf of the funding member states of DiSSCo. The infrastructure will need to rely on a combination of technical, scientific, and procedural knowledge to move forward in this direction and craft all these strategies and policies. Of course, the technical and scientific expertise lies in the hands of the DiSSCo community of institutions. The administrative and procedural knowledge will come from the Funders Forum, now transformed and renamed into the Interim Council. DiSSCo’s Coordination and Support Office (CSO) will glue them together and coordinate their joint efforts.
DiSSCo CEO, Dimitris Koureas summarises the role of the new Interim Council of DiSSCo
Structure and Role of the DiSSCo Interim Council
The new Interim Council will have a more executive character than the Funders Forum insofar as it is expected to steer DiSSCo’s actions in two areas: the negotiation and submission of the finalised ERIC application to the European Commission and the design and approval of the necessary policies and strategies to be implemented during the early stages of DiSSCo’s Construction Phase.
Being the Interim Council a decision-making body, the question is how it will cohabitate and collaborate with another decision-making body, i.e. the scientific and technical community of DiSSCo, represented in its general assembly. The answer to that question is quite straightforward. The Interim Council will focus on matters related to the operation of the ERIC -legal, organisational, and financial- while DiSSCo’s iGA will take care of the scientific and technical roadmap to the future Research Infrastructure. Besides, the Interim Council will invite scientific and technical representation so that the view is more integrated.
The Interim Council will consist of ministerial and scientific representatives from all DiSSCo countries, CETAF, and institutions from countries without established nodes. Voting rights, however, will be limited to countries that formally express their commitment to becoming founding DiSSCo members. The rules of procedure for the Interim Council will be approved during the new body’s first inaugural meeting later this year.
Do you want to know more about the technical side of DiSSCo? DiSSCo puts different technical knowledge platforms at the scientific community’s disposal:
DiSSCoTech: Get the latest technical posts about the design of DiSSCo’s Infrastructure
DiSSCo Labs: A preview of experimental services and demonstrators by the DiSSCo community
DiSSCo GitHub: Code hosting for DiSSCo software, version control and collaboration
DiSSCo Modelling Framework: A WikiBase tool that is configured to create an abstraction of the DiSSCo data model